SpectroBoy:When (not to long from now) robots can do the majority of manual labor, what will the majority of humans do for a living?

The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tallmountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done bysmall robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty isclear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you.

Wow. I really did fall asleep and wake up down the rabbit hole. I take home the same amount as a Foxconn worker for essentially the same job. Bonus: I get no benefits and no housing. Granted, I'm working 5 hours instead of twelve, and the company hasnt needed to put up nets on the roof to stop suicides, but I'm starting to think maybe it should. . .

When (not to long from now) robots can do the majority of manual labor, what will the majority of humans do for a living?

I mean, not everybody can be a scientist, engineer, doctors, or reality show star. With 50% of the population having below average intelligence what happens to them?!?

Serious answer: what do you think the service sector basically is? There's a reason you've seen such huge growth in the area, and it's not because everyone suddenly really needs fast food, a part time maid or lawn service.

That said, we're on the cusp of another, even worse issue: what happens when companies like Amazon basically eliminate huge chunks of the retail sector? Retail jobs aren't great but they at least pay something and they offer a way for a lot of hard working but low education folks to move up to management. Oh, and that's going to be eliminated in huge chunks as well- the Intertubes can get rid of the middleman in many transactions.

Honestly, I'm not sure what happens next- we're in the middle of a transition every bit as disruptive as the Industrial revolution when everyone left the farms for factory work, and we haven't totally absorbed that one even after 150 years.

When (not to long from now) robots can do the majority of manual labor, what will the majority of humans do for a living?

I mean, not everybody can be a scientist, engineer, doctors, or reality show star. With 50% of the population having below average intelligence what happens to them?!?

Society becomes unsustainable. Idle population has to either be put to work, put on the dole, or put to war.

When work goes away, you can either have welfare or warfare. The Federation in Star Trek went with the welfare route, freeing up populace for silly things like space exploration. Actually, Asimov touched on this in his Robot series. Some populations abolished advanced machines, while others went into NPG, doling out entire counties to single people and allowing them to spend their time on artisanal pursuits.

When (not to long from now) robots can do the majority of manual labor, what will the majority of humans do for a living?

I mean, not everybody can be a scientist, engineer, doctors, or reality show star. With 50% of the population having below average intelligence what happens to them?!?

Serious answer: what do you think the service sector basically is? There's a reason you've seen such huge growth in the area, and it's not because everyone suddenly really needs fast food, a part time maid or lawn service.

That said, we're on the cusp of another, even worse issue: what happens when companies like Amazon basically eliminate huge chunks of the retail sector? Retail jobs aren't great but they at least pay something and they offer a way for a lot of hard working but low education folks to move up to management. Oh, and that's going to be eliminated in huge chunks as well- the Intertubes can get rid of the middleman in many transactions.

Honestly, I'm not sure what happens next- we're in the middle of a transition every bit as disruptive as the Industrial revolution when everyone left the farms for factory work, and we haven't totally absorbed that one even after 150 years.

What's kind of funny is that the answer is staring you in the face: work will change, people will have to do less to survive, people will have more, and we'll just do something else.

That's pretty much what happened to our manufacturing jobs. Up until very recently the USA still produced more stuff (by value) than anyone else, including China. (Or we may still, depending on who you ask).

Glockenspiel Hero:Serious answer: what do you think the service sector basically is? There's a reason you've seen such huge growth in the area, and it's not because everyone suddenly really needs fast food, a part time maid or lawn service.

That said, we're on the cusp of another, even worse issue: what happens when companies like Amazon basically eliminate huge chunks of the retail sector? Retail jobs aren't great but they at least pay something and they offer a way for a lot of hard working but low education folks to move up to management. Oh, and that's going to be eliminated in huge chunks as well- the Intertubes can get rid of the middleman in many transactions.

Honestly, I'm not sure what happens next- we're in the middle of a transition every bit as disruptive as the Industrial revolution when everyone left the farms for factory work, and we haven't totally absorbed that one even after 150 years.

That's what I was asking about.

Shrinking retail job. Shrinking labor jobs.

I imagine it will not be too long before robots can mow lawns and pull weeds.

I guess eventually (at the singularity) they will even be able to do my job (software).

I've been calling it the "Jetsons Economy." In the Jetsons, productivity was way, way up - George only worked eight hours a week, as a button puncher. On eight hours a week, he was able to afford two kids and a dog in a high-rise apartment, plus a live-in housekeeper and a wife who didn't need to work. He still fretted about money, but he was firmly middle-class.

What we didn't realize was that when this brave new economy came along, Spaceley wouldn't share the wealth. George should be making eight thousand dollars an hour in 2012 dollars. Instead, our wage has remained stagnant, and our hours have been cut. If the wages for my department had been tied to productivity over the past ten years, everyone in my office would be making about $90 per hour. We expected this would happen because the turn-of-the-century rise in worker power brought about a rise in middle-class leisure. Surely as automation continued to increase, so would that leisure. If I were paid $90 per hour, I'd be able to afford an earlier retirement and get out of the workforce so that someone else could have my spot.

But wages were never tied to productivity. So George would be making the same $20 or so per hour, doing the work of what must be hundreds of people, and taking home $160 per week. And there'd be no other work for him to do. Meanwhile, Spaceley Sprockets would be harvesting the advantages of all this diverted labor - a handful of people paid beans, running entire factories by themselves.

If job creators aren't going to pay based on productivity, the only way to run a Jetsons Economy is a massive tax-grab from employers to the government and a huge welfare-state capable of providing a barely-living wage to the hundreds of people automation has put out of work, so that consumer society could be supported from the bottom up...

Actually, remind me of the downside of that, again? I think I lost my train of thought.

Automation is the beginning of the end of the factory girl, and that's a good thing

Good for them; it was frankly annoying to read about foxconn's slave labor committing suicide in one of my classes last semester. I am all about maximizing profits and minimizing costs, I wanna be a capitalist; if I wanted to be concerned about the welfare of others, I would have majored in Sociology.

Dialectic:Automation is the beginning of the end of the factory girl, and that's a good thing

Good for them; it was frankly annoying to read about foxconn's slave labor committing suicide in one of my classes last semester. I am all about maximizing profits and minimizing costs, I wanna be a capitalist; if I wanted to be concerned about the welfare of others, I would have majored in Sociology.

I work in Accounts Receivable for a very large REIT. We receive several hundred rent checks or bank transfers a month, and another several hundred additional work order or utility payments. These range from $15 for a security pass replacement to seven figures for big tenants. Most of these checks have to be manually allocated to relieve charges.

But not all of them.

A few years back we started using both our deposit banks software, and our own internally developed algorithms, to begin to apply checks automatically. The programs match banking information on the checks with previous payments, looks for exact matches between open amounts and the amount paid, and even can see if the tenants indicated what invoice they were paying.

The successful hit rate is small, but getting better as we feed it more information. For the most part, it has allowed us to continue to acquire properties without growing the AR department, which has only gained one seat in the eleven years I have worked for the company. But as software continues to get smarter, and the scanners learn to read checks more accurately, my department will eventually be mostly obsolete.

Don't worry, the resource wars will continue becoming more frequent and vicious. Since America has roboticized much of its fighting forces already we won't see many casualties anymore, but that's where the private prisons come in.

PROTIP: After maximizing automation, have the remaining human inventory document the hell out of their job and use this info to formulate strong SOP's that can be done by unskilled morons. Now replace everyone who isn't top management with subcontractors and third-party staffing. Outsource everything else. The money will now roll in.